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| Neil O'Neill at the Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA, May 2008 |
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| Maureen Hurley at the Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA, May 2008 |
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Neil O'Neill at the Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA, May 2008 (photos)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Badgering the Dog
Neil's fellow clansman Roy has an old badger pelt sporran. A sporran is a kind of man purse placed strategically across the front of a man's kilt to keep things primly Victorian.
At the Livermore Scottish Highland Games, dogs are very much part of the event: Scotties, corgies, Airdales, greyhounds, Irish wolfhounds, border collies, hunting dogs and terriers are on display. They're usually on leashes.
Roy's badger sporran is not just another hairy pouch, it is a complete badger pelt replete with tail, paws, ears, a snout, whiskers and two beady glass eyes. It's a relic of a bygone era.
The badger is the totem sign of a chieftain, prominent in many Celtic mythological tales as the magician's expandable bag, capable of containing entire feasts and even humans.
Some games committees frown upon the wearing of sporrans made of the pelts of endangered species, such as harp seals, leopards and arctic foxes. Not that badgers are endangered, but they do draw attention as most sporrans have long since lost most of their animal characteristics.
Roy was having a quiet smoke at the outdoor pub with a full pint in his hand when a loose dog came up to him and began to point, then he began to bark furiously. Roy was startled and backed up and the dog made as if to lunge, his eyes transfixed on the badger's beady eyes.
Roy quickly covered his groin with his free hand, his attention split between his cigarette, his beer and the dog. Something had to go. One hand over his sporran wasn't enough of a deterrent. The badger was too big. Roy dropped the beer in the dry grass and covered his sporran with both hands before the dog lunged for the kill. The dog backed off.
But the minute Roy dropped his hands from the sporran, the dog went ballistic. By this point Roy was more than a little nervous as the dog clearly had a bead on that badger and was growling and baring the business end of his teeth.
Roy couldn't take his hands away to shoo the dog or the dog would attack, and no man in his right mind wants a dog to latch onto that region with a terrier's grip to kill his prey, even if it is a sporran. At that point, I'm sure Roy was wishing that sporran had some magical properties to swallow the dog whole.
As long as Roy stood there with his hands covering the badger's eyes, he was safe, but the minute he removed them all hell broke out...they were at a stalemate until the dog eventually tired of his quarry and wandered off. Roy's replacement beer was on the house.
POSTMORTEM
As we were all packing up our tents at game's end, an anxious, exposed field mouse skittered across the lawn looking for a hiding place. He'd moved into one of the tents during the weekend and set up a base camp. we were the last to leave. Seeking shelter, he ran over our feet and cowered by our insteps.
We moved out of the way and he made a beeline for the next dark shape which happened to be my car wheel. I could see his little tail hanging out of my hubcap. I'd just loaded up mounds of gear, I was beat and didn't want to unpack it to get to the tyre iron in order to remove the hubcap.
I crawled under the car to flush him out. The more I tried to drive him out, the firmer he entrenched himself in my wheelbase. I tried driving in short spurts on the grass, I even left the car parked beside a dumpster for a half an hour. I gave him ample opportunity to escape but he just wouldn't leave the car wheel.
Where was that damned dog when you needed him?
Mending the Kilt
At the Livermore Scottish Highland Games, dogs are very much part of the event: Scotties, corgies, Airdales, greyhounds, Irish wolfhounds, border collies, hunting dogs and terriers are on display. They're usually on leashes.
Roy's badger sporran is not just another hairy pouch, it is a complete badger pelt replete with tail, paws, ears, a snout, whiskers and two beady glass eyes. It's a relic of a bygone era.
The badger is the totem sign of a chieftain, prominent in many Celtic mythological tales as the magician's expandable bag, capable of containing entire feasts and even humans.
Some games committees frown upon the wearing of sporrans made of the pelts of endangered species, such as harp seals, leopards and arctic foxes. Not that badgers are endangered, but they do draw attention as most sporrans have long since lost most of their animal characteristics.
Roy was having a quiet smoke at the outdoor pub with a full pint in his hand when a loose dog came up to him and began to point, then he began to bark furiously. Roy was startled and backed up and the dog made as if to lunge, his eyes transfixed on the badger's beady eyes.
Roy quickly covered his groin with his free hand, his attention split between his cigarette, his beer and the dog. Something had to go. One hand over his sporran wasn't enough of a deterrent. The badger was too big. Roy dropped the beer in the dry grass and covered his sporran with both hands before the dog lunged for the kill. The dog backed off.
But the minute Roy dropped his hands from the sporran, the dog went ballistic. By this point Roy was more than a little nervous as the dog clearly had a bead on that badger and was growling and baring the business end of his teeth.
Roy couldn't take his hands away to shoo the dog or the dog would attack, and no man in his right mind wants a dog to latch onto that region with a terrier's grip to kill his prey, even if it is a sporran. At that point, I'm sure Roy was wishing that sporran had some magical properties to swallow the dog whole.
As long as Roy stood there with his hands covering the badger's eyes, he was safe, but the minute he removed them all hell broke out...they were at a stalemate until the dog eventually tired of his quarry and wandered off. Roy's replacement beer was on the house.
POSTMORTEM
As we were all packing up our tents at game's end, an anxious, exposed field mouse skittered across the lawn looking for a hiding place. He'd moved into one of the tents during the weekend and set up a base camp. we were the last to leave. Seeking shelter, he ran over our feet and cowered by our insteps.
We moved out of the way and he made a beeline for the next dark shape which happened to be my car wheel. I could see his little tail hanging out of my hubcap. I'd just loaded up mounds of gear, I was beat and didn't want to unpack it to get to the tyre iron in order to remove the hubcap.
I crawled under the car to flush him out. The more I tried to drive him out, the firmer he entrenched himself in my wheelbase. I tried driving in short spurts on the grass, I even left the car parked beside a dumpster for a half an hour. I gave him ample opportunity to escape but he just wouldn't leave the car wheel.
Where was that damned dog when you needed him?
Mending the Kilt
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Two fragments: BELIEVE, SEEKING OBLIVION
BELIEVE
Yeah, Santa Claus and I were on shaky ground
when we had no chimney for him to slide down.
when we had no chimney for him to slide down.
5/13/2008
SEEKING OBLIVION
Once I was a mathlete of numbers
but now I’m the stars of eternity
in search of a black hole
seeking oblivion in the darkness.
5/13/2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Mending the Kilt
Neil's antique 1920s kilt is literally falling apart. Before every Highland Games festival, my job is to inspect it and give it a quick stitch or two. Mending the kilt is an ongoing battle. Why not get a new one? They cost more than a plane ticket to Scotland. There are varying weights and styles of kilts, and that also affects cost.
But the most traditional of kilts is the military kilt, thanks to Queen Victoria who had a prudish fondness for men's well-turned calves. The kilt was more of a mini skirt before it was lengthened to a respectable knee length during the Victorian era. Much of Queen Victoria's influence still governs the style and length of kilts to this day.
The heavier military weight kilt material runs about $60 a yard and at least nine long uninterrupted yards are needed to make a kilt, hence the saying, "the whole nine yards" to cover a man.
A kilt is a lifetime investment. One doesn't simply put a hem or take a kilt in, it's all fitted exactly, so the kilt is literally made to the man. No hems in a kilt, just a straight selvage edge to the knee. Rumor has it that men were expected to kneel before the Queen, and the selvage edge of the kilt had to touch the floor.
Neil found his Farquharson kilt, in Inverness in 1981, for 35 quid on a wee back street tartan shop off the main drag.
Last winter we looked at used kilts for 75 quid at the jumble sales in the mean streets of the Barras (Barrowland—named after the street merchants' wheelbarrows during the 1890s) and in the Gorbals past the Gallowgate in Glasgow's rough southside, once Europe's worst slum. Some say Paddy's Market under the viaducts near the River Clyde is the oldest flea market in Europe.
Some say, the locals would just as soon slit your throat as to give you the time of day. The name alone (Paddy) should give you a clue as to who al lived in the Gorbals. But not one of those kilts would fit him for love or money.
In the Highlands, the whole family traditionally chips in on a chap's 21st birthday to buy him a kilt, and each year, he got another piece of the outfit. By the time he reached the ages of 27 to 30 he was supposed to be kitted out in full Highland dress.
Neil's family is Irish-Scots, so no Scottish tartan is associated with O'Neill. MacNeill, yes. So Neil had to kit himself out in highland dress.
Neil chose the Farquharson tartan because the kilt reminded him of his scout uniform colors. A favorite tartan of Scottish boy scout troops, Farquharson is a Jacobite sept of Clan MacKintosh and Clan Chattan that fought at Culloden Mor, also associated with the Gordons. The Gae Gordons were also our hosts at the Las Vegas Highland Games.
Everything about the kilt is imbued with mystery and meaning. The Farquharson moto is is Fide et Fortitudine (fidelity and fortitude).
The kilt, held up by two buckles and a lot of faith, is a mathematical challenge in plaid. The pleating is either done “to the sett”, repeating the tartan pattern, or regimental, “to the line or stripe." Neil's kilt is sewn to the stripe. All stripes need to match up exactly on the grain. There are 23 to 45 pleats on a kilt, depending on the sett.
Neil's kilt has 48 or 50 "hand deep" 4" pleats, depending on how you count the deeper first pleats on the front and the under apron pleats. It takes six pleats on Neil's kilt to repeat the tartan pattern which is a black watch military pattern with yellow and red stripes—for the colors of the royal rampant lion flag of Scotland?
There are two types of pleats: knife pleats and the more complex box pleats. Luckily Neil's kilt has the simple knife pleat. What you see of the tartan is like the edges of a deck of cards fanned out on the casino table by an expert blackjack dealer.
In other words, most of the kilt is hidden in the folds of the pleats. When the thread begins to rot on a kilt, you don't send it out to the draper or dressmaker, it has to be remade by a specialized kiltmaker, and the repair cost can run more than buying a new kilt at £5-600.
No matter how you cut it, miles and miles of thread and a lot of hand stitching goes into making a kilt. A simple overcast seamless stitch won't do, it has to be the invisible stitch, double-knotted every few stitches so it won't unravel under the pendulous weight of the pleats.
Now I know it's some sort of a hellacious Calvinist sin to use a sewing machine on a kilt but it's stronger than my hand stitching. You're not supposed to pierce the yarn, but sew between the yarns. And the buckle leather does need a sewing machine's special touch.
The old 1929 Singer of mine had the gumption to sew through most of the triple thickness of the tartan. But the motor strained and moaned like a constipated caber tosser.
No matter how hard I held onto the pinned kilt, the material shifted when the pressure foot gripped the wool, throwing off the stripe so it was no longer on the grain, so I still had to massage it back into place by hand. So much for modern shortcuts.
Not much holds the kilt up to begin with, so every stitch counts. Safety pins help too. We were running late for our plane when Neil announced his kilt was falling apart.
Enroute to the airport, he hastily pulled on a pair of shorts, and stripped off the kilt, while I hurriedly massaged his kilt together with a few crucial stitches and some well-placed safety pins. At the airport, he rolled it up and stuffed it into his suitcase and we were on our way to the Las Vegas Games.
My quick handiwork held up and got us through a hectic weekend of Highland Games without a single mishap.
But not through airport security on the way home. Again, we were running late. To save time, he decided not to change and to wear the kilt to the airport. We left directly from a performance and there was little time to spare before our flight took off for Oakland.
Needless to say, when we went through security, bells and whistles and alarms went off everywhere.
Neil stepped into the plexiglas booth and took off every bit of metal he could find. he took off his sporran, the kilt brooch from the apron and every safety pin he could find. Even his sock flashers. Still, the kilt triggered the electronic sensors.
It was a real showstopper. Passengers stood transfixed, waiting to see what would happen next. It began to look like the kilt would have to stay in Vegas.
By this point, Neil was so frustrated that he began to unbuckle the kilt to hand the damned thing over to the guard. The guard stopped him, saying, "Sir, please do not remove it. Do NOT remove it." Neil had on plaid knickers but the TSA airport security guard didn't even want to go there. He even threatened arrest if Neil did disrobe.
The guard frowned and waved his wand. He frowned some more. Adjusted the setting. Waved and frowned for what seemed an eternity. More TSA guards joined him, observing his technique. The final boarding call had just been announced and there wasn't another plane til the next day.
Now, Neil has tiny metal plates in his face from an old car accident. So the wand beeped crazily around his head too. The TSA guard shook his head in double consternation but eventually he let Neil go. Good think Neil didn't have on his skian dubh.
Neil had to run the entire length of the Las Vegas airport concourse with all nine yards of his kilt flapping dangerously behind like a laden scald crow on a battlefield.
I was yelling, "Run, Forrest, run!"
Passengers sniggered and parted as he chugged down the ramps. He got an ovation when he boarded the plane, all wild-eyed and out of breath. He was the only man in a kilt on that flight. Everyone else was already dressed down in their skivvies. The flight attendants loved it and gave him a drink.
Airport security was not amused by a Scotsman in national dress nor did they want to find out what is worn under the kilt. And that's another whole story.
POST MORTEM:
I found out later that another kilted Highland warrior clansman, dressed in traditional garb also attempted to fly home on an earlier flight. Understand that a traditional kilt is not the same as the rather prudish Victorian kilt we all know and love. The traditional kilt is comprised of a looooong bolt of cloth, and a belt. Nothing more.
You lay your yardage on the ground and pleat it. Then you roll yourself up into it, and cinch it around your waist with a belt, the excess end piece creates a mantle, a shirt and a pouch. And then you hope and pray that everything stays in place.
At various Highland games I've watched full grown men thrashing about on the ground like strange flailing narwhals—getting dressed is tricky at the best of times, and apparently even more so when you're hung over.
Watching the guys from Albannach get dressed the next morning after the night before—was hysterical. I also got a glimpse at a whole lot more than what I bargained for so early on a Sunday morning. Talk about flashing.
OK, back to Las Vegas Airport: the TSA agent insisted that the Living History re-enactor—who also happens to be a genuine Scottish Laird, to remove his belt. That's what the manual says to do. Right? The laird tried to explain what would happen if he did so, but the guard would have none of it.
So the laird removed the belt. As the kilt fell to the ground, he rotated in the glass booth with arms spread wide—to show the entire airport what was worn under the kilt. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
No wonder the TSA guard wouldn't let Neil remove his kilt. He'd already been flashed.
Badgering the Dog
But the most traditional of kilts is the military kilt, thanks to Queen Victoria who had a prudish fondness for men's well-turned calves. The kilt was more of a mini skirt before it was lengthened to a respectable knee length during the Victorian era. Much of Queen Victoria's influence still governs the style and length of kilts to this day.
The heavier military weight kilt material runs about $60 a yard and at least nine long uninterrupted yards are needed to make a kilt, hence the saying, "the whole nine yards" to cover a man.
A kilt is a lifetime investment. One doesn't simply put a hem or take a kilt in, it's all fitted exactly, so the kilt is literally made to the man. No hems in a kilt, just a straight selvage edge to the knee. Rumor has it that men were expected to kneel before the Queen, and the selvage edge of the kilt had to touch the floor.
Neil found his Farquharson kilt, in Inverness in 1981, for 35 quid on a wee back street tartan shop off the main drag.
Last winter we looked at used kilts for 75 quid at the jumble sales in the mean streets of the Barras (Barrowland—named after the street merchants' wheelbarrows during the 1890s) and in the Gorbals past the Gallowgate in Glasgow's rough southside, once Europe's worst slum. Some say Paddy's Market under the viaducts near the River Clyde is the oldest flea market in Europe.
Some say, the locals would just as soon slit your throat as to give you the time of day. The name alone (Paddy) should give you a clue as to who al lived in the Gorbals. But not one of those kilts would fit him for love or money.
In the Highlands, the whole family traditionally chips in on a chap's 21st birthday to buy him a kilt, and each year, he got another piece of the outfit. By the time he reached the ages of 27 to 30 he was supposed to be kitted out in full Highland dress.
Neil's family is Irish-Scots, so no Scottish tartan is associated with O'Neill. MacNeill, yes. So Neil had to kit himself out in highland dress.
Neil chose the Farquharson tartan because the kilt reminded him of his scout uniform colors. A favorite tartan of Scottish boy scout troops, Farquharson is a Jacobite sept of Clan MacKintosh and Clan Chattan that fought at Culloden Mor, also associated with the Gordons. The Gae Gordons were also our hosts at the Las Vegas Highland Games.
Everything about the kilt is imbued with mystery and meaning. The Farquharson moto is is Fide et Fortitudine (fidelity and fortitude).
The kilt, held up by two buckles and a lot of faith, is a mathematical challenge in plaid. The pleating is either done “to the sett”, repeating the tartan pattern, or regimental, “to the line or stripe." Neil's kilt is sewn to the stripe. All stripes need to match up exactly on the grain. There are 23 to 45 pleats on a kilt, depending on the sett.
Neil's kilt has 48 or 50 "hand deep" 4" pleats, depending on how you count the deeper first pleats on the front and the under apron pleats. It takes six pleats on Neil's kilt to repeat the tartan pattern which is a black watch military pattern with yellow and red stripes—for the colors of the royal rampant lion flag of Scotland?
There are two types of pleats: knife pleats and the more complex box pleats. Luckily Neil's kilt has the simple knife pleat. What you see of the tartan is like the edges of a deck of cards fanned out on the casino table by an expert blackjack dealer.
In other words, most of the kilt is hidden in the folds of the pleats. When the thread begins to rot on a kilt, you don't send it out to the draper or dressmaker, it has to be remade by a specialized kiltmaker, and the repair cost can run more than buying a new kilt at £5-600.
No matter how you cut it, miles and miles of thread and a lot of hand stitching goes into making a kilt. A simple overcast seamless stitch won't do, it has to be the invisible stitch, double-knotted every few stitches so it won't unravel under the pendulous weight of the pleats.
Now I know it's some sort of a hellacious Calvinist sin to use a sewing machine on a kilt but it's stronger than my hand stitching. You're not supposed to pierce the yarn, but sew between the yarns. And the buckle leather does need a sewing machine's special touch.
The old 1929 Singer of mine had the gumption to sew through most of the triple thickness of the tartan. But the motor strained and moaned like a constipated caber tosser.
No matter how hard I held onto the pinned kilt, the material shifted when the pressure foot gripped the wool, throwing off the stripe so it was no longer on the grain, so I still had to massage it back into place by hand. So much for modern shortcuts.
Not much holds the kilt up to begin with, so every stitch counts. Safety pins help too. We were running late for our plane when Neil announced his kilt was falling apart.
Enroute to the airport, he hastily pulled on a pair of shorts, and stripped off the kilt, while I hurriedly massaged his kilt together with a few crucial stitches and some well-placed safety pins. At the airport, he rolled it up and stuffed it into his suitcase and we were on our way to the Las Vegas Games.
My quick handiwork held up and got us through a hectic weekend of Highland Games without a single mishap.
But not through airport security on the way home. Again, we were running late. To save time, he decided not to change and to wear the kilt to the airport. We left directly from a performance and there was little time to spare before our flight took off for Oakland.
Needless to say, when we went through security, bells and whistles and alarms went off everywhere.
Neil stepped into the plexiglas booth and took off every bit of metal he could find. he took off his sporran, the kilt brooch from the apron and every safety pin he could find. Even his sock flashers. Still, the kilt triggered the electronic sensors.
It was a real showstopper. Passengers stood transfixed, waiting to see what would happen next. It began to look like the kilt would have to stay in Vegas.
By this point, Neil was so frustrated that he began to unbuckle the kilt to hand the damned thing over to the guard. The guard stopped him, saying, "Sir, please do not remove it. Do NOT remove it." Neil had on plaid knickers but the TSA airport security guard didn't even want to go there. He even threatened arrest if Neil did disrobe.
The guard frowned and waved his wand. He frowned some more. Adjusted the setting. Waved and frowned for what seemed an eternity. More TSA guards joined him, observing his technique. The final boarding call had just been announced and there wasn't another plane til the next day.
Now, Neil has tiny metal plates in his face from an old car accident. So the wand beeped crazily around his head too. The TSA guard shook his head in double consternation but eventually he let Neil go. Good think Neil didn't have on his skian dubh.
Neil had to run the entire length of the Las Vegas airport concourse with all nine yards of his kilt flapping dangerously behind like a laden scald crow on a battlefield.
I was yelling, "Run, Forrest, run!"
Passengers sniggered and parted as he chugged down the ramps. He got an ovation when he boarded the plane, all wild-eyed and out of breath. He was the only man in a kilt on that flight. Everyone else was already dressed down in their skivvies. The flight attendants loved it and gave him a drink.
Airport security was not amused by a Scotsman in national dress nor did they want to find out what is worn under the kilt. And that's another whole story.
POST MORTEM:
I found out later that another kilted Highland warrior clansman, dressed in traditional garb also attempted to fly home on an earlier flight. Understand that a traditional kilt is not the same as the rather prudish Victorian kilt we all know and love. The traditional kilt is comprised of a looooong bolt of cloth, and a belt. Nothing more.
You lay your yardage on the ground and pleat it. Then you roll yourself up into it, and cinch it around your waist with a belt, the excess end piece creates a mantle, a shirt and a pouch. And then you hope and pray that everything stays in place.
At various Highland games I've watched full grown men thrashing about on the ground like strange flailing narwhals—getting dressed is tricky at the best of times, and apparently even more so when you're hung over.
Watching the guys from Albannach get dressed the next morning after the night before—was hysterical. I also got a glimpse at a whole lot more than what I bargained for so early on a Sunday morning. Talk about flashing.
OK, back to Las Vegas Airport: the TSA agent insisted that the Living History re-enactor—who also happens to be a genuine Scottish Laird, to remove his belt. That's what the manual says to do. Right? The laird tried to explain what would happen if he did so, but the guard would have none of it.
So the laird removed the belt. As the kilt fell to the ground, he rotated in the glass booth with arms spread wide—to show the entire airport what was worn under the kilt. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
No wonder the TSA guard wouldn't let Neil remove his kilt. He'd already been flashed.
Badgering the Dog
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Stitching Together Memory
My old Singer sewing machine pulley belt is in tatters and shreds and no longer adequately drives the wheel. The canvas belt is separating from the rubber and has shredded so as to interfere with the wheel pulley. I trimmed the belt with a nail scissors and got a little more life out of it but now the old belt's literally hanging by a thread.
I haven't been able to properly use my Singer for years. Last time I used it was five years ago to mend Neil's 1920s military kilt. It's literally falling apart again and the polyester thread I used to hand-stitch its myriad pleats back into place, doesn't hold up to the considerable weight of the fabric. The kilt must weigh 7-10 pounds so that's a lot of strain on the thread and the buckle fastenings.
Hard to find the old Coates and Clarke thread these days. "The best thread in the world," my grandmother always said. "Good sturdy stuff," she'd say, pulling on the thread, making it taut until it twanged and sang like a harp string. "Made in Scotland too." Little did I know that my domestic destiny would be caught up in that bobbin of thread manufactured in the cotton factories along the Clydebank.
I haven't been able to use my old Singer for years. The little motor spins and moans when the belt slips and I have to coax it along by hand. At this point, I'd be better off with a treadle sewing machine. I really need a replacement belt. But when I look for belts, I can't seem to find one for that model.
Sure, I could get a new sewing machine. Lord knows they're cheap enough new. I could even get one for nothing on Freecycle. But I have a fierce loyalty to my old outdated Singer sewing machine. Sure it'd be lovely to be able to zig-zag or embroider or make button holes, or even have a reverse option.
My grandmother had a similar model Singer bought used from a peddler during the Depression in San Francisco. She gave him five bucks a week until it was paid off. She sewed all the clothes for 8 of her own children (4 boys and 4 girls), and also for my brother and me (she raised us) on that old Singer.
She also sewed generations of curtains and bedsheets on that Singer. When the sheets got worn out down the middle, she ripped them apart and sewed the relatively unworn outside ends together. I even had a set of summer sheets pieced together from old flour sacks. I loved their fresh laundered line dried stiff scratchy feel. It heralded summer.
My brother and I, we both learned how to sew on that old Singer. He became an auto upholsterer. During the hippie era, I even sewed leather skirts, vests and purses on it—not to mention rather, er, inventive dressed and tops! My mom once sewed up a multicolored red and blue canvas panel tepee on that Singer.
My brother and I, we both accidentally sewed up the tips of our fingers on that Singer. We sang and howled with pain but it made us much more careful sewers.
Apparently it was a family right of passage. My mom also sewed up the tip of her finger several times over on that old Singer. She later did a lot of theatre and costume designing on it. One costuming stint at the Cal Neva casino for Sinatra's fan dancing show girls—not a whole lot of material involved on that job—mostly feathers and beads.
I remember another sewing stint of hers with the famous Hollywood designer Ruben Panis (she married him so he could get his Green Card; he was later brutally murdered by a jealous lover) making Miss World costumes—I did the seed pearl beading on Miss Korea's pageant gown. The point is, that old Singer was running 12-16 hours a day under deadline and it never once faltered.
My cousin Kate has my grandmother's Singer now and it's still working fine (it's on its 2nd or 3rd motor), but she needs a belt as well. (BTW, she too has sewed up the tip of her finger. A good thing we have fingernails. It usually stops the needle from traveling up to the tip of the metatarsal finger bone.)
When I moved away from home, I bought my Singer in 1972 for a whopping $40 on 2nd Street between C and D Streets in San Rafael, CA. A neighbor had given me a gorgeous similar vintage White model but it didn't work as well as the Singer. After about 6 months using it, I was ready for a better sewing machine. So one morning when I was driving down 2nd street saw this old black and gold Singer exactly like my grannie's in the window, I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and ran into the used appliance store.
The owner tried to dissuade me from buying that old Singer, saying, "what-aya want that old thing for? I got some real nice Kenmores here. How 'bout a White? They're better than that old Singer. More features. It's old. Won't last long. Won't be able to find parts for it. You'll want the newer features" He really wanted to sell me a more modern 1960s sewing machine. But I had my heart set on that Singer.
Besides, the old White, though it was truly magnificent to behold, with its plethora of dizzying gold foil and colored enamel scroll work to admire, it was a real Jezebel. Despite its fancy inlaid walnut cabinet and painted beauty, it was really a lousy machine. The spindle bobbin was always jamming and balling up into a tight knot of thread (I. M. Singer improved the old bobbin and tension assembly) and I never got used to using the pressure foot pedal. There were gas and brake pedals more accurate than that pedal. I missed the much more accurate and precise knee pressure pedal on my grannie's Singer.
I wanted that old Singer. I wanted the best. You might say I was destined to own that old Singer. I emptied my wallet on the counter, but I was about a dollar short of $20 so I ran out to my car and scrounged for lost coins in the ash tray but I was still a few cents short, so I looked under the car seat: a nickel, a penny a dime. I had the down payment! I had an old hand-me-down '58 Volvo panel van from my uncle John—are you ready for this?—originally imported as a Singer delivery van, and thanks to its coin swallowing crevices managed to scrape up the $20 down on it.
Unbeknownst to me, I had entered into the original innovative Singer Hire-Purchase process—put a little money down, pay in installments—precursor to the credit card. It took me a few months to earn the rest of the money for the Singer. When I finally came to claim it, the shopkeeper, shaking his head doubtfully at my folly, he thought the Singer was a more modern 1939 model than my Grannie's.
So did I—until today when I stumbled upon the Singer website. Looking up specs on another machine being offered for free on Freecycle, I was shocked to discover that AC515997 was a 1929 model. I don't know how many motors it had from 1929 to 1972, but I've only had the one motor for nearly 35 years. I have used it for 30 years... until the belt shredded about 5 years ago.....
Well, suffice to say, nearly 35 years later, I still don't need any parts for my Singer but I do need a new pulley belt. My machine was never quite as robust as my grandmother's Singer, it can't sew through thick material like a tepee with French seams, or leather without a lot of coaxing, but it usually did the job. I miss it. I really don't want a new machine.
ADDENDUM 9/6/08: After hauling my Singer into several sewing stores in Oakland and after calling almost every quilting store in Alameda County during the 3-digit heat heat wave in June, I resorted to trial and error, trying every sewing machine and vacuum cleaner belt I could find that was around 13 inches long. Nothing worked. Most belts are far too short.
Women stopped to admire my black and gold Singer strapped to the wheelie luggage rack like a lovely child in a pram, they, with their modern sewing machines, couldn't believe their eyes. A mirage. I felt like I'd stepped out of a living history museum time warp. We swapped stories on the longivity and sheer sewing power of the old Singers that could sew through most anything.
One rather toney sewing store owner on Piedmont Avenue (my last hope), haughtily rendered a suburban sniff at my machine as if it was something dragged in from the gutter, wanted to know when's the last time I got it serviced. I said never, I did it myself. She looked at me as if I was deranged. "But you can't do that," she said. Of course I can. I replied. Dead simple to lube and tune it. Like a Volkswagon Bug. An idiot could do it. I resorted to special ordering a motor pulley belt that never arrived.
After three months of waiting for the Singer pulley belt, when Costco had a special sale on Singers, I broke down and bought a newfangled machine for $150 that makes buttonholes, embroiders & zizzags too. But though it has 51 stitches, and it even self threads, it's more cumbersome and bothersome to use than my old Singer. it's claketty as a train, sounds like it needs a valve job and a lube. Too many levers in the way. Little plastic knobs come off at the slightest touch.
I can't see what I'm doing without hunching down for fear of sewing up my nose. I hate the micro LED light. No pulley belt in sight. Everything's locked away behind a bulky white plastic case. Even the thread guys. The thread spool now lays sideways, you need a toy wheel to keep it on. A piece guaranteed to get lost sooner rather than later around kids. How hard would it have been to put a hinge on the spool holder rod and let gravity keep it in place? Like the old days? No room for oversized industrial spools here. Just the weenie expensive spools of thread with exotic names. No Coates and Clarks. Alas, I've entered into the realm where one gets one's machine annually "serviced" for the price I originally paid for it.
I miss the knee pedal. I wound up dragging the foot pedal onto the bed and sitting cross-legged, I could lean on it and approximate the knee pedal action by using the foot pedal as a knee pedal. One woman said it's easy to use the foot pedal, like driving a car. I'm from the four-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal driving school. Not easy to switch when you've learned to sew with your knee for 45 years! Programming's utterly different. Like comparing dressage to drag racing. The slow stitch finger button makes up for it. Maybe I'll adjust to it in time. Meanwhile, an mountain of sewing repairs, in some cases, dating back five years, awaits.
This summer, I did stand at the falls on the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland, and took photos of the old Coates & Clarkes building, now renovated into fancy loft offices. All the cotton mills and thread factories are being torn down for condos in Johnstone, Elderslie, and the other industrial towns that sprung into being during the 1800s. I couldn't even find a sewing machine belt there either, for love or money.
-----------------
I loved the story of how the modern sewing machine was invented and perfected via a dream. Whether or not it's true, it was a flash of inspiration. I can't find the reference, but I.M. Singer couldn't resolve the thread breaking, he dreamed of two swordsmen fighting with needles with eyes on the tips...and that's how the solution to create a needle tension mechanism came to him.
I was also once tight friends with Sonoma County poet Pam Singer Raphael, distantly related to Isaac Merritt Singer. God only knows what branch she descends from, there are many. I never asked. She was a real New Jersey girl, talked kinda funny, with a heart of gold and in those halcyon daze we had a strong taste for Humboldt Heaven, Acapulco Gold and Maui Wowie.
Pam was a real waterdog, she was once a champion water skater back in Jersey. We spent many a summer day swimming hidden pools along the Russian River and the Gualala River. Back in 1979, we apprenticed together under Lee Perron and trained to become poet-teachers for California Poets in the Schools, teaching poetry (and art ) to kids—a job which became my lifelong calling. I never thought to ask if Pam was also related to Isaac Bashievs Singer, I think she was... I'd met his literary agent Sylvia Tota on a Hungarian train one summer. (See blog: Budapest Nights).
Pam's father was a chemist who invented Sensodyne and Qwell! After the Summer of Love, Pam said a lot of her hippie friends used to profusely thank her father for inventing Quell when they met him. her boyfriend Michael Yesbik said he shook Pam's father's hand for inventing Quell.
Having read a bit of Pam's paternal ancestor's somewhat philanderous ways (I. M. Singer had several simultaneous wives and more than a Baker's dozen of children), it's an aptly fitting invention! Singer, escaping a matrimonial scandal in New York, fled to Glasgow with his new bride, set up a Singer factory and built a residence on Clydebank.
One time she told her father how much I liked Sensodyne but it was so hard to find in Sonoma County. He sent me a care package, a whole box full of Sensodyne toothpaste. I didn't dare mention to her that I was i also intimate with Qwell as I picked up lice that summer while trying on clothes in Waikiki stores. I was completely hysterical when I found out, but that's another story...
--------------------
My partner Neil's hard working chain smoking aunties and mum were all employed by Clydebank Singer (Coates and Clarke) factories. The old brick and glass walled factories still stand along the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland. Their myriad window panes glint in the sunlight. In the afternoon, the sun shines right through the building so the vast banks of windows light up like vast cathedrals of prisms. Now the buildings have been converted into modern malls.
My grandmother would tell me that the thread was made in Scotland. I still have some old Scottish Coates & Clarke wooden thread spools, once a prime toy find. It rolled, it made a fine a building block and it even made for a crude yo-yo or necklace of sorts. I even made a flute out of several thread spools. It didn't work. I didn't know about reeds.
Little did I know I would actually wind up with a man whose family worked in those same factories. Now his auntie Cathie, the woman who delivered him, is dead. The funeral was held day before yesterday. She was a grand old lady nicknamed Lazarus because she had been at death's door so many times and defied his debt. She gave up her ciggies (coffin fags) at 70. Her grave site overlooks the old mill factories on the River Cart. Come midsummer, we'll be visiting her grave. I have a half a mind to bring along a necklace made of those old Coates and Clarke thread spools and lay them at her grave. Fitting afterlife booty for the barrow.
I haven't been able to properly use my Singer for years. Last time I used it was five years ago to mend Neil's 1920s military kilt. It's literally falling apart again and the polyester thread I used to hand-stitch its myriad pleats back into place, doesn't hold up to the considerable weight of the fabric. The kilt must weigh 7-10 pounds so that's a lot of strain on the thread and the buckle fastenings.
Hard to find the old Coates and Clarke thread these days. "The best thread in the world," my grandmother always said. "Good sturdy stuff," she'd say, pulling on the thread, making it taut until it twanged and sang like a harp string. "Made in Scotland too." Little did I know that my domestic destiny would be caught up in that bobbin of thread manufactured in the cotton factories along the Clydebank.
I haven't been able to use my old Singer for years. The little motor spins and moans when the belt slips and I have to coax it along by hand. At this point, I'd be better off with a treadle sewing machine. I really need a replacement belt. But when I look for belts, I can't seem to find one for that model.
Sure, I could get a new sewing machine. Lord knows they're cheap enough new. I could even get one for nothing on Freecycle. But I have a fierce loyalty to my old outdated Singer sewing machine. Sure it'd be lovely to be able to zig-zag or embroider or make button holes, or even have a reverse option.
My grandmother had a similar model Singer bought used from a peddler during the Depression in San Francisco. She gave him five bucks a week until it was paid off. She sewed all the clothes for 8 of her own children (4 boys and 4 girls), and also for my brother and me (she raised us) on that old Singer.
She also sewed generations of curtains and bedsheets on that Singer. When the sheets got worn out down the middle, she ripped them apart and sewed the relatively unworn outside ends together. I even had a set of summer sheets pieced together from old flour sacks. I loved their fresh laundered line dried stiff scratchy feel. It heralded summer.
My brother and I, we both learned how to sew on that old Singer. He became an auto upholsterer. During the hippie era, I even sewed leather skirts, vests and purses on it—not to mention rather, er, inventive dressed and tops! My mom once sewed up a multicolored red and blue canvas panel tepee on that Singer.
My brother and I, we both accidentally sewed up the tips of our fingers on that Singer. We sang and howled with pain but it made us much more careful sewers.
Apparently it was a family right of passage. My mom also sewed up the tip of her finger several times over on that old Singer. She later did a lot of theatre and costume designing on it. One costuming stint at the Cal Neva casino for Sinatra's fan dancing show girls—not a whole lot of material involved on that job—mostly feathers and beads.
I remember another sewing stint of hers with the famous Hollywood designer Ruben Panis (she married him so he could get his Green Card; he was later brutally murdered by a jealous lover) making Miss World costumes—I did the seed pearl beading on Miss Korea's pageant gown. The point is, that old Singer was running 12-16 hours a day under deadline and it never once faltered.
My cousin Kate has my grandmother's Singer now and it's still working fine (it's on its 2nd or 3rd motor), but she needs a belt as well. (BTW, she too has sewed up the tip of her finger. A good thing we have fingernails. It usually stops the needle from traveling up to the tip of the metatarsal finger bone.)
When I moved away from home, I bought my Singer in 1972 for a whopping $40 on 2nd Street between C and D Streets in San Rafael, CA. A neighbor had given me a gorgeous similar vintage White model but it didn't work as well as the Singer. After about 6 months using it, I was ready for a better sewing machine. So one morning when I was driving down 2nd street saw this old black and gold Singer exactly like my grannie's in the window, I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and ran into the used appliance store.
The owner tried to dissuade me from buying that old Singer, saying, "what-aya want that old thing for? I got some real nice Kenmores here. How 'bout a White? They're better than that old Singer. More features. It's old. Won't last long. Won't be able to find parts for it. You'll want the newer features" He really wanted to sell me a more modern 1960s sewing machine. But I had my heart set on that Singer.
Besides, the old White, though it was truly magnificent to behold, with its plethora of dizzying gold foil and colored enamel scroll work to admire, it was a real Jezebel. Despite its fancy inlaid walnut cabinet and painted beauty, it was really a lousy machine. The spindle bobbin was always jamming and balling up into a tight knot of thread (I. M. Singer improved the old bobbin and tension assembly) and I never got used to using the pressure foot pedal. There were gas and brake pedals more accurate than that pedal. I missed the much more accurate and precise knee pressure pedal on my grannie's Singer.
I wanted that old Singer. I wanted the best. You might say I was destined to own that old Singer. I emptied my wallet on the counter, but I was about a dollar short of $20 so I ran out to my car and scrounged for lost coins in the ash tray but I was still a few cents short, so I looked under the car seat: a nickel, a penny a dime. I had the down payment! I had an old hand-me-down '58 Volvo panel van from my uncle John—are you ready for this?—originally imported as a Singer delivery van, and thanks to its coin swallowing crevices managed to scrape up the $20 down on it.
Unbeknownst to me, I had entered into the original innovative Singer Hire-Purchase process—put a little money down, pay in installments—precursor to the credit card. It took me a few months to earn the rest of the money for the Singer. When I finally came to claim it, the shopkeeper, shaking his head doubtfully at my folly, he thought the Singer was a more modern 1939 model than my Grannie's.
So did I—until today when I stumbled upon the Singer website. Looking up specs on another machine being offered for free on Freecycle, I was shocked to discover that AC515997 was a 1929 model. I don't know how many motors it had from 1929 to 1972, but I've only had the one motor for nearly 35 years. I have used it for 30 years... until the belt shredded about 5 years ago.....
Well, suffice to say, nearly 35 years later, I still don't need any parts for my Singer but I do need a new pulley belt. My machine was never quite as robust as my grandmother's Singer, it can't sew through thick material like a tepee with French seams, or leather without a lot of coaxing, but it usually did the job. I miss it. I really don't want a new machine.
ADDENDUM 9/6/08: After hauling my Singer into several sewing stores in Oakland and after calling almost every quilting store in Alameda County during the 3-digit heat heat wave in June, I resorted to trial and error, trying every sewing machine and vacuum cleaner belt I could find that was around 13 inches long. Nothing worked. Most belts are far too short.
Women stopped to admire my black and gold Singer strapped to the wheelie luggage rack like a lovely child in a pram, they, with their modern sewing machines, couldn't believe their eyes. A mirage. I felt like I'd stepped out of a living history museum time warp. We swapped stories on the longivity and sheer sewing power of the old Singers that could sew through most anything.
One rather toney sewing store owner on Piedmont Avenue (my last hope), haughtily rendered a suburban sniff at my machine as if it was something dragged in from the gutter, wanted to know when's the last time I got it serviced. I said never, I did it myself. She looked at me as if I was deranged. "But you can't do that," she said. Of course I can. I replied. Dead simple to lube and tune it. Like a Volkswagon Bug. An idiot could do it. I resorted to special ordering a motor pulley belt that never arrived.
After three months of waiting for the Singer pulley belt, when Costco had a special sale on Singers, I broke down and bought a newfangled machine for $150 that makes buttonholes, embroiders & zizzags too. But though it has 51 stitches, and it even self threads, it's more cumbersome and bothersome to use than my old Singer. it's claketty as a train, sounds like it needs a valve job and a lube. Too many levers in the way. Little plastic knobs come off at the slightest touch.
I can't see what I'm doing without hunching down for fear of sewing up my nose. I hate the micro LED light. No pulley belt in sight. Everything's locked away behind a bulky white plastic case. Even the thread guys. The thread spool now lays sideways, you need a toy wheel to keep it on. A piece guaranteed to get lost sooner rather than later around kids. How hard would it have been to put a hinge on the spool holder rod and let gravity keep it in place? Like the old days? No room for oversized industrial spools here. Just the weenie expensive spools of thread with exotic names. No Coates and Clarks. Alas, I've entered into the realm where one gets one's machine annually "serviced" for the price I originally paid for it.
I miss the knee pedal. I wound up dragging the foot pedal onto the bed and sitting cross-legged, I could lean on it and approximate the knee pedal action by using the foot pedal as a knee pedal. One woman said it's easy to use the foot pedal, like driving a car. I'm from the four-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal driving school. Not easy to switch when you've learned to sew with your knee for 45 years! Programming's utterly different. Like comparing dressage to drag racing. The slow stitch finger button makes up for it. Maybe I'll adjust to it in time. Meanwhile, an mountain of sewing repairs, in some cases, dating back five years, awaits.
This summer, I did stand at the falls on the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland, and took photos of the old Coates & Clarkes building, now renovated into fancy loft offices. All the cotton mills and thread factories are being torn down for condos in Johnstone, Elderslie, and the other industrial towns that sprung into being during the 1800s. I couldn't even find a sewing machine belt there either, for love or money.
-----------------
I loved the story of how the modern sewing machine was invented and perfected via a dream. Whether or not it's true, it was a flash of inspiration. I can't find the reference, but I.M. Singer couldn't resolve the thread breaking, he dreamed of two swordsmen fighting with needles with eyes on the tips...and that's how the solution to create a needle tension mechanism came to him.
I was also once tight friends with Sonoma County poet Pam Singer Raphael, distantly related to Isaac Merritt Singer. God only knows what branch she descends from, there are many. I never asked. She was a real New Jersey girl, talked kinda funny, with a heart of gold and in those halcyon daze we had a strong taste for Humboldt Heaven, Acapulco Gold and Maui Wowie.
Pam was a real waterdog, she was once a champion water skater back in Jersey. We spent many a summer day swimming hidden pools along the Russian River and the Gualala River. Back in 1979, we apprenticed together under Lee Perron and trained to become poet-teachers for California Poets in the Schools, teaching poetry (and art ) to kids—a job which became my lifelong calling. I never thought to ask if Pam was also related to Isaac Bashievs Singer, I think she was... I'd met his literary agent Sylvia Tota on a Hungarian train one summer. (See blog: Budapest Nights).
Pam's father was a chemist who invented Sensodyne and Qwell! After the Summer of Love, Pam said a lot of her hippie friends used to profusely thank her father for inventing Quell when they met him. her boyfriend Michael Yesbik said he shook Pam's father's hand for inventing Quell.
Having read a bit of Pam's paternal ancestor's somewhat philanderous ways (I. M. Singer had several simultaneous wives and more than a Baker's dozen of children), it's an aptly fitting invention! Singer, escaping a matrimonial scandal in New York, fled to Glasgow with his new bride, set up a Singer factory and built a residence on Clydebank.
One time she told her father how much I liked Sensodyne but it was so hard to find in Sonoma County. He sent me a care package, a whole box full of Sensodyne toothpaste. I didn't dare mention to her that I was i also intimate with Qwell as I picked up lice that summer while trying on clothes in Waikiki stores. I was completely hysterical when I found out, but that's another story...
--------------------
My partner Neil's hard working chain smoking aunties and mum were all employed by Clydebank Singer (Coates and Clarke) factories. The old brick and glass walled factories still stand along the River Cart in Paisley, Scotland. Their myriad window panes glint in the sunlight. In the afternoon, the sun shines right through the building so the vast banks of windows light up like vast cathedrals of prisms. Now the buildings have been converted into modern malls.
My grandmother would tell me that the thread was made in Scotland. I still have some old Scottish Coates & Clarke wooden thread spools, once a prime toy find. It rolled, it made a fine a building block and it even made for a crude yo-yo or necklace of sorts. I even made a flute out of several thread spools. It didn't work. I didn't know about reeds.
Little did I know I would actually wind up with a man whose family worked in those same factories. Now his auntie Cathie, the woman who delivered him, is dead. The funeral was held day before yesterday. She was a grand old lady nicknamed Lazarus because she had been at death's door so many times and defied his debt. She gave up her ciggies (coffin fags) at 70. Her grave site overlooks the old mill factories on the River Cart. Come midsummer, we'll be visiting her grave. I have a half a mind to bring along a necklace made of those old Coates and Clarke thread spools and lay them at her grave. Fitting afterlife booty for the barrow.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
AFTER AMERGIN
—After Amergin
I am the water upon the sea
i was the one who challenged the wind
to sing to the sea
I ran from the moon's shadow
that crept across the deserted plain
i dreamt of twilight's sadness
Who but I made all these things?
An in-class CPITS ditty that goes nowhere in particular, ca May 2008.
WIDE OPEN MONTANA SKIES
I met a man named Montana
with eyes like open skies.
Pity, those Raybans
obscured that shining horizon
of his wide blue eyes.
No date: from my Writers' Group notes ca. May 2008. I'm holistically dating it by what's around it in my slush pile. One of those silly lines that comes to you out of nowhere, then, won't let you go.
with eyes like open skies.
Pity, those Raybans
obscured that shining horizon
of his wide blue eyes.
No date: from my Writers' Group notes ca. May 2008. I'm holistically dating it by what's around it in my slush pile. One of those silly lines that comes to you out of nowhere, then, won't let you go.
Butterfly paintings (in class demos) (art)
I have a lot of big drawings I do to demonstrate to kids. Most are vaporware, drawn on chalk or whiteboard. Tempera and water base black marking pen (Eberhart Faber) 12x18" each. Bilateral symmetry is really tough for little kids to master, so I often fold the paper into quadrants. They later cut them out and put them in the classroom. Huge butterflies adorn the walls.
Tempera and water base black marking pen (Eberhart Faber) 12x18" each. I also give kids a slideshow to demonstrate the wide variety of moths and butterflies. Then they invent their own. I also use this demo time to teach insect anatomy. Art and science are one thing. Does it have a thorax, check, antennae? Check. Proboscis? Check!
Tempera and water base black marking pen (Eberhart Faber) 12x18" each. I also give kids a slideshow to demonstrate the wide variety of moths and butterflies. Then they invent their own. I also use this demo time to teach insect anatomy. Art and science are one thing. Does it have a thorax, check, antennae? Check. Proboscis? Check!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Tartan Day Ball, 2008 (photo)
Tartan Day Ball, 2008. We're partying like rock stars. Got me green bottle in front of me. Ironic, I view the world (and read) through my left eye, and take photos with my right eye (it's a lazy bugger)—and in photos of me, my left eye is always the squinty one. And, no I didn't need glasses then! I did have a "lazy" eye as a kid, but didn't wear a patch. I think it has something to do with how our brains process information. I'm right handed, but left-eyed. Dyslexic trait? I'm also left footed. And I can switch-hit at baseball. Right eye processed by left brain; left eye processed by right brain. All I know is that in this photo, I'm squint-eyed happy. Floyd Busby photo.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Freewrite, 4 poems, writing from photographs, Diane Arbus portraits, Tobey Kaplan
From a photo by Diane Arbus
On the low rise of the hill,
children sit waiting for the camera.
A moment of time frozen on silver bromide
and gelatin, or perhaps glass.
It’s not of this century,
the photographer adjusts the lens,
the tripod uneven, poses the sky and the hill,
trees lose their footing, the children watch,
waiting patiently in the spring grass, barefoot,
wearing silly summer hats.
One girl smiles, already willing to please.
A lone boy scowls, but he is intrigued,
the other tilts his head with hands on knees
drawn up, the other girl turns her body away,
and chews her fingernails, waits.
Four moods caught on film,
their bodies have long since left the frame.
They are now adults
with lives of their own in the city.
Beyond the frame, the hill stretches
its famous green expanse, the humid air,
heavy with the weight of cigarettes,
the shadows creeping in.
From a photo by Diane Arbus
In a white room not his own,
a man in an overcoat lounges on the twin bed.
It could be a hotel room
but the bedspread I recognize,
fitted velour, stripes faded with age.
Maybe he’s in his mothers house,
having stepped in for his monthly visit,
baked afternoon dust irritates his nose.
An expensive lithograph is on the wall,
it could be Matisse or even a Chagall.
A sophistication of line. A lamp on the bed table
is like a drum of light echoing.
Everything is symmetrical.
Perhaps she was concerned with order.
Let’s say he followed in his father’s footsteps.
The path led away from the house,
towards the freedom of an open bottle
shared amongst cronies at the end of the block.
The traveling salesman, the caged room,
the open road.
From a photo by Diane Arbus
In a room painted white,
through a gauze curtain
that falls like water to the floor
and filters the light,
the window shades corralled the light
into intense squares.
A woman sits in an easy chair.
It holds her like a child,
she is reading, her legs crossed,
ankles slender as a deer.
She hunches forward, her glasses,
the lamp, the window capture light
from another time.
The other chair is empty.
The cushion, lopsided, as if the man
who had sat there only crossed his legs
to one side, to the left.
The rug is freshly vacuumed
you can see the dry trails in the carpet
leading back towards the walls at oblique angles.
The lamp, once a pitcher from another era
is barely visible, the legs of the escritora,
the edges of a book,
the poem in another room.
From a photo by Diane Arbus
At the dance studio
the couple poses for the camera
She back steps, and arabesque
of unattainableness. He leans toward her.
His pants are too short
he’s in a growing spurt.
The two trophies lined up
on the dance floor at oblique angles
create a triangle of what is wanted,
what is hidden, and what will come.
The pale birch floor, a vast expanse,
leads to a bank of chairs,
empty of thought
or of wallflowers.
4/11/08
Montara Middle School
Bucket list Freewrite, Tobey Kaplan, Montara Middle School
Bucket list Freewrite
I want to see the northern islands
I want to go to the Isle of Man,
the Outer Hebrides, the Aran Islands.
I want to see the graveyard of kings
on the Isle of Iona, and the Holy Isle ofArran.
I want to see Thailand before I die,
the place where the tsunami scoured
fragile atoles, the resurgence of palm trees,
leaves clattering in the wind
I want to bask in the sun of down under,
snorkel the great barrier reef,
see the gardens of fish bloom
in technicolor splendor,
sit beneath the Boojum tree
and admire its strong adaptation
to desert sun and drought.
I want to live in a house in the country.
I might get a cat, maybe some chickens.
A house if I don’t have to take care of it daily.
I’ve already done that. I’d grow a garden,
watch the tomatoes ripen.
I’d eat raspberries right from the vine
I’d beat the birds at their own game
for breakfast.
But I woke up an hour too early today
and I thought I was late for class
so I listened to ancient music,
Uillean pipes in the morning mist.
It took me off. The clock stood still.
Time slipped away.
I was trapped between worlds,
transported to the otherworld
where time stands still
and life is always in the moment.
4/11/08
Montera Middle School
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
UNTITLED FREEWRITES Draft
DRAFT
I sent
A sunny day, impeccable blue
Clouds roiling like lost sheep, Greenfields
Outback of the bleachers, we threw foam pies under blue skies
We were busy naming the earth our mother under blue skies
God knows where Kelly was in thehay HAI GHC ?
The hate was the siren call under blue skies
And good old Joewas beginning his days in some bar in the city, no blue sky space
One monthto the summer of love for sense eternal under those lost blue skies.
March April, 2008 could be May 2009
with Tobey Kaplan at Montara School
I rewrote this several times, no idea which came first.
It was late summer in New York City
These voices cracked against the strain of washer
The unmentionable motion of the earth spinning and measured light
The cold cutting into what we have heard what we have found
A room of words wearing lace and sunglasses
The feeble instruments of this body.
First draft late spring in New York City Friday afternoons we played kickball against the back wall of the school these voices is cracked against the strain of water ups and sky the whisper and the measured light the crescent moon a pale candle
A string of light the feeble instrument of this body the measured light the room of words wearing lace and sunglasses the feeble instrument of this body a room of words a string of light, words measured water light measured light a strain of words a room of words wearing lace and sunglasses the feeble instruments of this body
The strain of water what you intend the earth spinning what we have heard the cold cutting into the wind
We played kickball against the back wall generations Friday afternoons after school like spring in New York City
Their voice is cracked against the strain the water and sky
And measured light, crescent moon, a pale candle
The unmentioned motion of the earth spinning the
The cold cutting into what we have heard what we intend a split on the entity in a roomful of words wearing lace and sunglasses the feeble instrument of this body I dance of light upon the waves
Saturday, March 15, 2008
At the Black Rose Irish Pub, Santa Rosa, Ca 3/At the Black Rose Irish Pub, Santa Rosa, Ca (photo)
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| At the Black Rose Irish Pub, Santa Rosa, Ca 3/2008 |
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Tempera fish (in class demo) (art)
Tempera, watercolor, and water-base black marking pen (Eberhart Faber), 12x18". Slideshow of outrageous fish, a little fish anatomy and then kids invent their own fantastical fishes. Introduction of white is always interesting as kids want to go
overboard. We put color down first‚ otherwise they try & paint white
on white, missing the point of making pastels, hues and tones.
fish drawings (art)
These demo fish drawn on 80 lb white sulfite paper are 12 x 18" each. I've
done a lot of snorkeling but I also used photos for anatomical
reference.
Demo fish drawn on whiteboard 4x8' (vaporware), The lesson was for kids to invent their own fantastical version of fish after seeing a slideshow of tropical fish.
Demo fish drawn on whiteboard 4x8' (vaporware), The lesson was for kids to invent their own fantastical version of fish after seeing a slideshow of tropical fish.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Neil O'Neill and Frank McConville, lurid sunset, Alameda Island, Alemeda, CA (photo)
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| Neil O'Neill and Frank McConville, lurid sunset, Alameda Island, Alemeda, CA |
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Daffodils for St Daffyd's Day (photos)
A potted daffodil opened in time for St Daffyd's Day. Backlighting seems to be a more interesting visual approach.
Daffodil (related to narcissus) admiring itself in a mirror.
Some garden flowers and leaves—good subjects to learn digital photography as they didn't squirm or complain too much. I've always inherited really old technology—people's cast off Macs and cameras. In 2006, I got two small KQED SPARK art grants, which allowed me to buy an iMac and 2 cheap digital cameras. That technology upgrade changed my life and it's been a huge exponential learning curve ever since. I spent off moments lurking in my neighbors' flowerbeds or grabbing photos on the fly.
Some garden flowers and leaves—good subjects to learn digital photography as they didn't squirm or complain too much. I've always inherited really old technology—people's cast off Macs and cameras. In 2006, I got two small KQED SPARK art grants, which allowed me to buy an iMac and 2 cheap digital cameras. That technology upgrade changed my life and it's been a huge exponential learning curve ever since. I spent off moments lurking in my neighbors' flowerbeds or grabbing photos on the fly.
My little digital Nikons aren't all that great but they do fit into a
jeans pocket and half the battle is being ready to catch the light. I
find that the older CoolPix L4 4.1 megapixel camera (dropped dozens of
times) is much better at focusing while my S200 7.1 MP camera captures
more color info.
My $29.95 made-in-China trainer-bra camera, little better than a cell phone, was half-dead after I accidentally watered it in a creek at the 2005 Kate Wolf Festival (it was 114 degrees) in Memdocino Co. I was sad to see it go as it did such a terrffic job in full sunlight. Though I was able to kick start it on the iMac, it was never quite the same.
It was terrible grainy (3.1 MP) to begin with and had a blue color cast but it had a great macro lens. That's what got me into taking photos of flowers. So I kept it for sentimentality's sake until a fellow Freecycler coming to collect books spotted it. Last I heard, it had a new lease on life and was working perfectly.
Here's hoping the technology fairy will soon send a L14 or a D40 Nikon my way as the trusty little L4 CoolPix that I carry into every class I teach (to document student work), is having a harder time focusing these days.
© 2007-2009 Maureen Hurley All works of art and photographs in these albums is © copyright 2009 by Maureen Hurley and may not be used in any endeavor or context.
added 2/2017 from Facebook
My $29.95 made-in-China trainer-bra camera, little better than a cell phone, was half-dead after I accidentally watered it in a creek at the 2005 Kate Wolf Festival (it was 114 degrees) in Memdocino Co. I was sad to see it go as it did such a terrffic job in full sunlight. Though I was able to kick start it on the iMac, it was never quite the same.
It was terrible grainy (3.1 MP) to begin with and had a blue color cast but it had a great macro lens. That's what got me into taking photos of flowers. So I kept it for sentimentality's sake until a fellow Freecycler coming to collect books spotted it. Last I heard, it had a new lease on life and was working perfectly.
Here's hoping the technology fairy will soon send a L14 or a D40 Nikon my way as the trusty little L4 CoolPix that I carry into every class I teach (to document student work), is having a harder time focusing these days.
© 2007-2009 Maureen Hurley All works of art and photographs in these albums is © copyright 2009 by Maureen Hurley and may not be used in any endeavor or context.
added 2/2017 from Facebook
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Nicasio Reservoir drawing & watercolor for Art from the Heart (art)
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| Nicasio Reservoir, 8x11", colored pencil & pastel |
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| Nicasio Reservoir, 8x11", practice piece, watercolor |
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
My drawing album on Facebook
Few people know my training is in the visual arts. I love bold contour line and sculptural light. A car accident in 1997 put me in front of a lot of flowers and since I couldn't do much else but sit around for about a year (and heal), I drew a lot of flowers. I used to think that cutting edge artists didn't draw flowers or landscapes, only Sunday painters, and here I was a SMTWThFS flower painter. The only edges I was cutting were my nails as everything hurt. So I drew, and drew and drew until I got it. I also work in the schools teaching art to kids, so many of the drawings are quickies I've done in class. There are a few landscapes as well. I try to imbue them with energy because that's how I see landscape—alive, like a tawny beast. But I prefer to work from real life as the human eye can see far more than the camera lens. The only exceptions are the Scottish landscapes. They’re from calendar images. The fish and butterflies that have crept into this album are, for the most part, on the spot 2-minute teaching drawings I did in class. They all serve to inform me.
From a Facebook post. See all the drawing folder here. They’re also scattered throughout this blog, click on the tags below. Drawings dredges up a different collection than the tag drawing, etc.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Letter to Shirley MacLaine's Camino, Johannes Scottus Eríugena
Dear Shirley,
I enjoyed many aspects of the autobiographical memoir of your pilgrimage and journey on El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, or The Way of Saint James over the Pyrenees and across Spain, ending in the Celtic lands of Galicia and Finisterra at the end of the known world.
To travel West, to Tír na nÓg, the island of the ever-young (or the ever-dead), that mythical place beyond the edges of the map, is well attested in Irish Celtic mythology and oral tradition. But the idea that the genesis for this particular pilgrimage would have originated in Scotland under John the Scot literally has one traveling in the wrong direction. Do the geography. France seems to be the likely origin of el Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. Spain was another route.
Pilgrimage to the West would have taken the Irish monks (most medieval Scottish monks were Irish-born) rather out of the way of Galicia—to Iceland and the Farøe Islands (or Vineland!). Irish hermits settled there the sixth century, introducing sheep, oats and early Irish language to the islands. Farøes place names to St Patrick and St. Brigit attest to pre-Viking, Irish occupation.
The Irish Saint Brendan (ca. 484–578 AD), was said to have visited the Farøes on two or three occasions (512-530 AD), naming Sheep Island (Farøe means sheep) and Paradise Island of Birds.
St. Columba was more contrary, sailing northwest to Iona. For the record, Scotland's patron saint Columba (or Columcille—and instigator of the world's first use of copyright) was Irish-born. Iona was not part of Scotland then. There was no Scotland as we know it. The Hebrides were their own entity—settled by the Irish—I might add.
I must however, take umbrage with your passing off the first John the Scot (b. 800-815 AD in Ireland)—as being Scottish. He was Irish.
It is possible that the idea of pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, or Iago of Compostela was based on Gaulish Celtic tradition and cultivated by the Irish missionaries of Iona, the Hebrides, Scotland and Europe as the Irish monks were the innkeepers of Christianity and knowledge (fios) throughout the Dark Ages in Paris, Rheims, Bobbio, St. Gallen, Laon, and other important Christian centers of learning. Galicia is still a Celtic stronghold to this day.
The Irish also found interesting ways to write themselves into the Bible as they weren't mentioned in the Old Testament as one of the Lost Tribes or otherwise. So they got inventive. And there have always been strong ties between Galicia and Ireland. De Valera, Ireland's first president was Galician. But I digress.
The origins of the Santiago de Compostela legend dates back to ca. 813, roughly the same time Johannes Scotus Eríugena (see also) or, John the Scot, was born, circa 800 to 815 AD. in Ireland—not Scotland. John spent most of his adult life in what later became France under the patronage of Charles the Bald. Charlemagne (b. 742 ) died in 814 AD—a year before John was born. (Now that really would've been an anachronistic miracle having Charlemange converse with John at such a tender age!)
From 575 to 725 AD, Irish monks founded some 150 abbeys on the continent. To paraphrase Paul Gallagher's study, Irish Monastery Movement:
We don't know when John arrived in Paris (circa 830-40 AD?), but he was a monk at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Denis, a place of ancient pilgrimage, the most sacred place to be in France. By 630 AD, it was also one of the richest and most influential abbeys in Europe. Burial ground of kings, a new church was completed by Charlemagne in 877 AD.
It is clear you did some research as you got much of John the Scot's story right, but alas, by making John the Scot a Scots-Irish man, you anachrostically conflated him with a 12th c. Bishpop of Scotland who, curiously, also seems to be Irish-born. John the Scot was more commonly known throughout history as Johannes Scottus Eríugena. Eire is the ancient word for Ireland, and "gen" means born: as in Irish-born.
As to your extrapolation of William of Malmesbury's story of a king asking John: "Quid distat inter sottum et scottum?" as being a literary Easter egg of your discovery, this is an old story I learned at the knee of my Irish grandmother, it is not particularly obscure.
Circa 843 AD, the Frankish king, Charles the Bald (b. 823 AD), not Charlemange as you had noted, asked the famous question of John. Anyway, the story is well attested in medieval manuscripts, and as John was also a famous medieval poet and philosopher, it's a story that often gets repeated.
…
This is the quote in full
The king, Charles the Bald, who was dining with John asked: Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?
(What separates a sot (drunkard) from an Irishman?)
John replied: Mensa tantum.
(Only a table).
(See a cartoon of the event here.)
Did John the Scot ever go to Santiago de Compostela? We don't know but the first written record of a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela was a century after his death.
Legend has it that John the Scot was invited back to Britain by Alfred the Great (who was educate in Ireland) to become Abbot of Malmesbury, or Athelny, or Oxford, but he was stabbed to death in 884 (10 years after his death) by acolyte-students with their pens for "trying to get them to think." (Philosophers). But seeing how goose wing quills were used for pens—I think this is a flight of fancy.
It's also said that John fled to Ireland at Charles the Bald's bidding as the pope was on a rampage after John's translation of Dennis the Areopagite was published without his consent. One count gives John's death in 874 in Ireland, another in 884 in Malmesbury. But it seems John died the same year as his long-time friend, Charles the Bald, in 877 AD. —History of Ireland, p 202-3.
John Scot Eriugena was a monk at St. Denis before going to the Carolingian court and Rheims; Eriugena retired to the monastery of Laon, a center of Irish influence in France. —Paul Gallagher, Irish Monastery Movement
I've visited several places where John the Scot was reputed to have taught including the hillfort citadel of Laon. My particular interest is in place name origins and in opidda, or Celtic hilltown forts—I've spent this Christmas season combing Google Earth in Renfrewshire for standing stones and Iron/bronze age forts and standing stones.
(An interesting aside, modern Scots still 'dress the stones' on the Solstice and New Years. Ach it was a hellish oiche maiden (hogmanay) this year (2006-07) with storms and 70 mph winds, but we managed to dress Cloch-na-Rhyderrick, or Clochoderrick, (perhaps I'll tell you about King Rhyderrick, friend of Columcille sometime—I was a student of UC Berkeley's Celtic Studies program.)
The stone of Rhyderrick, some call it Merlin's Stone—depending upon which story you hear—is still dressed today: others were clearly there before us, leaving red flowers and holly. As were the standing stones of the Girdle Toll in Irivne, Ayrshire.
I learned to dress the standing stones (with flowers, red berries, evergreens and whiskey) from my Irish Bantry Bay grannie, so I was the strange American hanging out with the rock, what's geologically called a glacial erratic. It's not technically a standing stone.
The rock, at one time, wobbled and it was used as a druidic judgement stone. It no longer wobbles as the mud is packed in around its base. We were trying not to get electrocuted by the farmer's fence as we so very carefully went over the stone stile—but I digress.
I imagine you must take umbrage at fan divulgence. Rest assured, I'm no raging fan, though I loved many of your movies. I'm a writer, cursed with the gift of the gab—or gob—on a 3 AM caffeind jag, and sufficiently irritated by your stretching of truth—or, shanghaiing of truth in Camino, to write to you, though I assume you'll never see it, nor respond. No matter, I will defend John the Scot's rightful birthright to cyberspace.
(Note bene: As to celebrity, I live with an actor, and I am the daughter of an actress so I know that tangled route. Between matinee and curtain call, my babysitters were the likes of Tommy Smothers, Lloyd Bridges & Sterling Hayden. The Gate Playhouse in Sausalito, Tiki Junction. My mother variously went by Maureen Reilly (nee), Maureen Hurley; one of her stage names was Kellé Hurley (as there was another actress Maureen Hurley); she was a dancer too, she admired you, and had me Out on a Limb reading your books at an early age.
Some of my school friends did make it to the big arena like Robin Williams, so please be assured I'm no autograph seeker nor fame collector. I did so love the writings of Kenneth Tynan, so that bit of story of Kathleen was precious to me...'horsemen pass by.' I'm more like Kathleen, pragmatic, less inclined to believe. But I do have glimmerings of the Sight, which drives my pragmatism crazy.)
Anyway, you might be interested to know that John the Scot was, perhaps, the most famous medieval philosopher, having translated the False-Dionysis treatise on the idea of free will. This treatise lead to an intellectual foment across Europe as John the Scot/ Johannes Scottus Eriugena had again taken up 5th c. Britons Celestinus and Pelagius' cause of free will versus the rote catechism of religious experience through the auspices of church dogma.
Needless to say, the idea of free will was not a popular concept with the pope as it undermined the church's papal authority (and tithing coffers). The pope had also posthumously excommunicated Pelagius for heresey. John the Scot too was well buried as it were, but he was rediscovered in 1680, and repatriated again to become the new rage of intelectual thought, profoundly influencing Schoppehaur and Kant—probably Spinoza as well. (Alas, Spinoza died in Amsterdam a full 4 years before John's treatises were widly published.
I have stood before the small iron gate of the synagogye where Spioza worshipped. So I reiterate, John was hardly as obscure as you suggest in Camino.
What becomes fascinating, however, is that you latched onto John the Scot, he does become the neo-Platonist who reintroduces the concept of individual experience with God, and free will vs church/state mandated group experience of religion. "Saints, sinners, generals, misfits, kings and queens. It is done by the intent to find one's deepest spiritual meaning and resolutions regarding conflicts in Self."
And so, here we are… so I thank you for that rediscovery, or shall I say, revisualized, with a deeper undertanding that comes with age. I too hope to complete the real Camino trek, before I'm 60, if possible (a bum knee—too many falls from horses in my youth—makes it a tough 500-mile proposition as I'm 54 and not at all likely to get younger) so your story (and imagination) did serve to re-inspire me to traverse the same route as Dante, Saint Francis of Assisi, Charlemagne, and Chaucer to go on pilgrimage.
In medieval legend, The Milky Way was said to be formed from the dust raised by the vast hordes of trekking pilgrims. The Spanish name for the Milky Way is El Camino de Santiago. Folk etymology has it that Compostela means field of stars.
The road of St. John may indeed be lit by a field of stars. Hoever, the Galician word, Compostella, derived from the Latin, compositum, is Composita Tella meaning "burial ground," not Field of Stars. With that, I'll bury this rant.
(This letter was sent to Shirley's webpage. No answer was the loud reply.)
I enjoyed many aspects of the autobiographical memoir of your pilgrimage and journey on El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, or The Way of Saint James over the Pyrenees and across Spain, ending in the Celtic lands of Galicia and Finisterra at the end of the known world.
Your book, Camino: Journey of the Spirit provided an entertaining read while I was rainbound with Scottish in-&-out-law relatives in Renfrewshire during the winter holidays (San Francisco is my natal town).
 |
| According to Medieval legend, St. James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to Libredon in Galicia where he was buried. In 813, a bright star guided a shepherd to the burial site, Santiago de Compostela. The miracle of St. James also served as a political wedge and a rallying battle cry against the invading Moors. (Wiki) |
To travel West, to Tír na nÓg, the island of the ever-young (or the ever-dead), that mythical place beyond the edges of the map, is well attested in Irish Celtic mythology and oral tradition. But the idea that the genesis for this particular pilgrimage would have originated in Scotland under John the Scot literally has one traveling in the wrong direction. Do the geography. France seems to be the likely origin of el Camino de Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. Spain was another route.
Pilgrimage to the West would have taken the Irish monks (most medieval Scottish monks were Irish-born) rather out of the way of Galicia—to Iceland and the Farøe Islands (or Vineland!). Irish hermits settled there the sixth century, introducing sheep, oats and early Irish language to the islands. Farøes place names to St Patrick and St. Brigit attest to pre-Viking, Irish occupation.
The Irish Saint Brendan (ca. 484–578 AD), was said to have visited the Farøes on two or three occasions (512-530 AD), naming Sheep Island (Farøe means sheep) and Paradise Island of Birds.
St. Columba was more contrary, sailing northwest to Iona. For the record, Scotland's patron saint Columba (or Columcille—and instigator of the world's first use of copyright) was Irish-born. Iona was not part of Scotland then. There was no Scotland as we know it. The Hebrides were their own entity—settled by the Irish—I might add.
I must however, take umbrage with your passing off the first John the Scot (b. 800-815 AD in Ireland)—as being Scottish. He was Irish.
It is possible that the idea of pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, or Iago of Compostela was based on Gaulish Celtic tradition and cultivated by the Irish missionaries of Iona, the Hebrides, Scotland and Europe as the Irish monks were the innkeepers of Christianity and knowledge (fios) throughout the Dark Ages in Paris, Rheims, Bobbio, St. Gallen, Laon, and other important Christian centers of learning. Galicia is still a Celtic stronghold to this day.
The Irish also found interesting ways to write themselves into the Bible as they weren't mentioned in the Old Testament as one of the Lost Tribes or otherwise. So they got inventive. And there have always been strong ties between Galicia and Ireland. De Valera, Ireland's first president was Galician. But I digress.
The origins of the Santiago de Compostela legend dates back to ca. 813, roughly the same time Johannes Scotus Eríugena (see also) or, John the Scot, was born, circa 800 to 815 AD. in Ireland—not Scotland. John spent most of his adult life in what later became France under the patronage of Charles the Bald. Charlemagne (b. 742 ) died in 814 AD—a year before John was born. (Now that really would've been an anachronistic miracle having Charlemange converse with John at such a tender age!)
From 575 to 725 AD, Irish monks founded some 150 abbeys on the continent. To paraphrase Paul Gallagher's study, Irish Monastery Movement:
Irish monastic scholars were renown throughout Europe for their knowledge of Greek, [Arabic], and Hebrew. Irish [monks founded European] monasteries that produced the teachers and scholars in Europe and remained centers of classical scholarship until the Viking invasions.If you had some medieval learning, you'd be aware that the word "Scot" referred to Ireland as Ireland was then known (since Roman times) as Scotia Major and Scotland (the part that was settled by the Irish) was known as Scotia Minor. That part of Scotland was called Little Ireland. Scotia probably means pirate, or raider, so I guess you're in fine order there.
We don't know when John arrived in Paris (circa 830-40 AD?), but he was a monk at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Denis, a place of ancient pilgrimage, the most sacred place to be in France. By 630 AD, it was also one of the richest and most influential abbeys in Europe. Burial ground of kings, a new church was completed by Charlemagne in 877 AD.
It is clear you did some research as you got much of John the Scot's story right, but alas, by making John the Scot a Scots-Irish man, you anachrostically conflated him with a 12th c. Bishpop of Scotland who, curiously, also seems to be Irish-born. John the Scot was more commonly known throughout history as Johannes Scottus Eríugena. Eire is the ancient word for Ireland, and "gen" means born: as in Irish-born.
As to your extrapolation of William of Malmesbury's story of a king asking John: "Quid distat inter sottum et scottum?" as being a literary Easter egg of your discovery, this is an old story I learned at the knee of my Irish grandmother, it is not particularly obscure.
 |
Carolingian king Charles the Bald had his hands full with the Breton Celts of Gaul who defeated him at the Battle of Ballon in 845. Challenging wits with John the Scot was not perhaps his brightest moment. But John was appointed head of the Court school.
|
Circa 843 AD, the Frankish king, Charles the Bald (b. 823 AD), not Charlemange as you had noted, asked the famous question of John. Anyway, the story is well attested in medieval manuscripts, and as John was also a famous medieval poet and philosopher, it's a story that often gets repeated.
 |
Johannes Scottus Eriugena b. ca. 800-815, d. ca. 874-877 AD, (also spelled Scottigena, Eriygena, Ierugena, and Erigena—means a "native of Ireland.") John the Scot, "a man of strong and eloquent mind", one of the brightest free thinkers of the Middle Ages, was eulogized as "coming out of the darkness like a meteor." A neoPlatonist, versed in knowledge of Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, wrote that true philosophy is true religion. His work was condemned in 855 and 859 AD and labled "Scots porridge.")
|
…
This is the quote in full
The king, Charles the Bald, who was dining with John asked: Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?
(What separates a sot (drunkard) from an Irishman?)
John replied: Mensa tantum.
(Only a table).
(See a cartoon of the event here.)
Did John the Scot ever go to Santiago de Compostela? We don't know but the first written record of a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela was a century after his death.
…the story of St. James was resurrected in perfect timing to spearhead the reconquest of Spain for Christianity, starting with the battle of Clavijo in 844 to the decisive victory at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, each time St. James appeared at the crucial moment to turn the tide of battle. St. James, Santiago Matamoros depicted as the knight in shining armour astride a white charger decapitating Moors with his sword. The first written record of pilgrimage to Santiago was when Bishop Gotescalco journeyed there in 950 and in 1072 Alfonso VI abolished tolls for all pilgrims travelling up into Galicia through Val Carce. —THE CAMINO – PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
Legend has it that John the Scot was invited back to Britain by Alfred the Great (who was educate in Ireland) to become Abbot of Malmesbury, or Athelny, or Oxford, but he was stabbed to death in 884 (10 years after his death) by acolyte-students with their pens for "trying to get them to think." (Philosophers). But seeing how goose wing quills were used for pens—I think this is a flight of fancy.
It's also said that John fled to Ireland at Charles the Bald's bidding as the pope was on a rampage after John's translation of Dennis the Areopagite was published without his consent. One count gives John's death in 874 in Ireland, another in 884 in Malmesbury. But it seems John died the same year as his long-time friend, Charles the Bald, in 877 AD. —History of Ireland, p 202-3.
John Scot Eriugena was a monk at St. Denis before going to the Carolingian court and Rheims; Eriugena retired to the monastery of Laon, a center of Irish influence in France. —Paul Gallagher, Irish Monastery Movement
I've visited several places where John the Scot was reputed to have taught including the hillfort citadel of Laon. My particular interest is in place name origins and in opidda, or Celtic hilltown forts—I've spent this Christmas season combing Google Earth in Renfrewshire for standing stones and Iron/bronze age forts and standing stones.
(An interesting aside, modern Scots still 'dress the stones' on the Solstice and New Years. Ach it was a hellish oiche maiden (hogmanay) this year (2006-07) with storms and 70 mph winds, but we managed to dress Cloch-na-Rhyderrick, or Clochoderrick, (perhaps I'll tell you about King Rhyderrick, friend of Columcille sometime—I was a student of UC Berkeley's Celtic Studies program.)
The stone of Rhyderrick, some call it Merlin's Stone—depending upon which story you hear—is still dressed today: others were clearly there before us, leaving red flowers and holly. As were the standing stones of the Girdle Toll in Irivne, Ayrshire.
I learned to dress the standing stones (with flowers, red berries, evergreens and whiskey) from my Irish Bantry Bay grannie, so I was the strange American hanging out with the rock, what's geologically called a glacial erratic. It's not technically a standing stone.
The rock, at one time, wobbled and it was used as a druidic judgement stone. It no longer wobbles as the mud is packed in around its base. We were trying not to get electrocuted by the farmer's fence as we so very carefully went over the stone stile—but I digress.
I imagine you must take umbrage at fan divulgence. Rest assured, I'm no raging fan, though I loved many of your movies. I'm a writer, cursed with the gift of the gab—or gob—on a 3 AM caffeind jag, and sufficiently irritated by your stretching of truth—or, shanghaiing of truth in Camino, to write to you, though I assume you'll never see it, nor respond. No matter, I will defend John the Scot's rightful birthright to cyberspace.
(Note bene: As to celebrity, I live with an actor, and I am the daughter of an actress so I know that tangled route. Between matinee and curtain call, my babysitters were the likes of Tommy Smothers, Lloyd Bridges & Sterling Hayden. The Gate Playhouse in Sausalito, Tiki Junction. My mother variously went by Maureen Reilly (nee), Maureen Hurley; one of her stage names was Kellé Hurley (as there was another actress Maureen Hurley); she was a dancer too, she admired you, and had me Out on a Limb reading your books at an early age.
Some of my school friends did make it to the big arena like Robin Williams, so please be assured I'm no autograph seeker nor fame collector. I did so love the writings of Kenneth Tynan, so that bit of story of Kathleen was precious to me...'horsemen pass by.' I'm more like Kathleen, pragmatic, less inclined to believe. But I do have glimmerings of the Sight, which drives my pragmatism crazy.)
Anyway, you might be interested to know that John the Scot was, perhaps, the most famous medieval philosopher, having translated the False-Dionysis treatise on the idea of free will. This treatise lead to an intellectual foment across Europe as John the Scot/ Johannes Scottus Eriugena had again taken up 5th c. Britons Celestinus and Pelagius' cause of free will versus the rote catechism of religious experience through the auspices of church dogma.
Needless to say, the idea of free will was not a popular concept with the pope as it undermined the church's papal authority (and tithing coffers). The pope had also posthumously excommunicated Pelagius for heresey. John the Scot too was well buried as it were, but he was rediscovered in 1680, and repatriated again to become the new rage of intelectual thought, profoundly influencing Schoppehaur and Kant—probably Spinoza as well. (Alas, Spinoza died in Amsterdam a full 4 years before John's treatises were widly published.
I have stood before the small iron gate of the synagogye where Spioza worshipped. So I reiterate, John was hardly as obscure as you suggest in Camino.
What becomes fascinating, however, is that you latched onto John the Scot, he does become the neo-Platonist who reintroduces the concept of individual experience with God, and free will vs church/state mandated group experience of religion. "Saints, sinners, generals, misfits, kings and queens. It is done by the intent to find one's deepest spiritual meaning and resolutions regarding conflicts in Self."
And so, here we are… so I thank you for that rediscovery, or shall I say, revisualized, with a deeper undertanding that comes with age. I too hope to complete the real Camino trek, before I'm 60, if possible (a bum knee—too many falls from horses in my youth—makes it a tough 500-mile proposition as I'm 54 and not at all likely to get younger) so your story (and imagination) did serve to re-inspire me to traverse the same route as Dante, Saint Francis of Assisi, Charlemagne, and Chaucer to go on pilgrimage.
In medieval legend, The Milky Way was said to be formed from the dust raised by the vast hordes of trekking pilgrims. The Spanish name for the Milky Way is El Camino de Santiago. Folk etymology has it that Compostela means field of stars.
The road of St. John may indeed be lit by a field of stars. Hoever, the Galician word, Compostella, derived from the Latin, compositum, is Composita Tella meaning "burial ground," not Field of Stars. With that, I'll bury this rant.
(This letter was sent to Shirley's webpage. No answer was the loud reply.)
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